Virtual-Doug

Be Careful Out There

The tug of wanting to rent or buy a môto is strong.  True enough, it will expand your horizons.  It gives you a sense of independence.

But be aware of this simple, horrendous fact:  Việt Nam has the second highest traffic fatality rate in the world.  Just a few weeks ago, we saw a man killed near our guest house.  A few days later, we saw another bad wreck with two people sprawled on the pavement.  Its dangerous out there.

According to the Việt Nam News, the official English language newspaper, there were 9,918 traffic accidents in the first eight months of this year.  Let’s just round that number up to an even 10,000.  Though we don’t know how many of those involved motorbikes, you be assured most of the 7,703 people who were killed were riding a môto.

Why is it so dangerous?  I think there are a number of reasons.

First - the median age of the population.  Over 65% of the population of Việt Nam was born after reunification in 1975.  That means most people are under thirty years old.  This is a ground swell of population growth that dwarfs the American baby boom.  As with young people around the world, they lack experience and they take uncalculated risks.

Secondly, the rapid economic development of the country since doi moi in 1986 means that very few people could afford a motorbike until the 1990s.  We have a friend who is 60 years old – and he bought his first motorbike in 1993.  That means even older people are fairly new at driving.  There is no passing on of motoring skills from father to son, and no driver education, and no ingrained sense of how traffic works.  The entire population is new to driving.  When you combine the youthfulness of the population with the fact that older Vietnamese are new to driving, its as if 90% of America’s drivers are 17 years old.

Third, there is a general lack of respect for traffic laws.  Yes, there are traffic police, but they are usually found at large intersections.  While you will occasionally see them out on the highway enforcing speeding laws, they are seldom seen in the city enforcing common sense traffic laws.  For instance, it is the norm to be stopped at a traffic light with another motorbike to your left – and when the light changes, have him accelerate quickly, and turn right in front of you.  Because there is not a sense of what controlled traffic should be like, one often sees people passing on the right,  driving slowly down the street four abreast talking with each other, or people just pulling out in front of you from a side street without looking.  Remember your mother telling you to look both ways before you cross the street?  Not so in Việt Nam.

Fourth – traffic experts will tell you one of the prime cause of vehicle wrecks is differences in speed.  Americans traveling on an urban expressway are used to “staying with the traffic.”  You worry less about the speed limit, and more about trying to travel at the same relative speed as the other cars.  Not in Việt Nam.  A cyclo driving, moving at a pace slower than a walk, is in the center of the lane with young motor bikers zooming by on the right side, and children  walking three abreast down the street just ahead of them.  Bicyclists commonly ignore traffic signals – and almost get clobbered by the taxi driving through on a green light.  Pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes, and automobiles all share the same streets.

Fifth – right of way is determined by the size of the vehicle.  There is no such thing as traffic turning at an intersection must yield to traffic going straight through.  Everybody just drives fast to go they way they want to go – and the biggest guy wins.

Finally – few people wear helmets.  Yes – they are supposed to wear them, and many do out on the open highway, but few people wear them in town.  A certain fatalism permeates Vietnamese society.

So – if you must, ride a môto – but be careful out there.  You may be the best rider in the world, but its always the other guy.

Assumptions

We recently spent a few days in Hà Nội.  While watching traffic one evening, I realized I have not been writing about two-wheeling in Việt Nam – I have been writing about two-wheeling in Huê.

There is a difference.

Hà Nội is a major city – the political capital of the country with a population exceeding two million.  It is well developed and booming.  The traffic in Hà Nội is crazy, but it is also much more orderly than in Huê.  You do not see five giggly girls pedaling down the street talking.  People do not walk in the streets of Hà Nội, primarily because they can walk on the sidewalks – the sidewalks of Huê are too crowded with other “stuff” to use for walking.  In Huê, it is common for people to make left-hand turns by hugging the curb in the wrong direction.  That is done in Hà Nội, but to a far lesser extent.

There are a lot of cyclos in Huê – they are used for more than carting tourists around, they are a prime means of making local deliveries of goods.  There are very few cyclos in Hà Nội, and they are exclusively for tourists.  It is actually unusual to see a cyclo in Hà Noi.

There are a lot more cars in Hà Nội - many more, and that changes the dynamics of riding.  And, there are more traffic lights.  But everything ties together to make Hà Nội traffic a bit more well-mannered than Huê traffic.

Before some Hanoians get all over me and point out errors in my observations, let me say that I know many of the side streets have sidewalks too crowded for walking – that the residential streets are chaotic, and that traffic is different in the Old Quarter.  I know that.  Frankly, I wouldn’t ride a môto from the airport into the city unless I had a death wish.  But, I also know most people coming to Việt Nam will not be going to Huê – they will be going to either Hồ Chí Minh City or Hà Nội.  Keep in mind that my previous postings are about Huê and take my advice with a grain of salt if you are going to the two big cities..

Just remember Huê is not HCMC or Hà Nội – just as Des Moines is not New York City.

Riding in the Rain

Việt Nam’s climate is monsoonal.  That’s techie talk meaning that everywhere you go in Việt Nam, there is a rainy season.  The time of the rainy season is different in different parts of the country, but sooner or later, it will rain on you when you’re riding.

Count on it!

Besides having to learn how to ride in the rain, you must also learn that you cannot avoid getting wet.  The best you can do is keep most of your body dry - - but you are going to get wet.

Deal with it!

The well-dressed môto rider carries a poncho all the time, folded neatly under the seat, ready for use whenever the skies get dark.  Note that there is a transparent panel in the front of the poncho. That lets you drape the poncho over the handlebars (and therefore keep your hands and arms dry) yet let your headlight shine through.

The well-dressed môto passenger has a poncho too – though it is best she bring her own as there is no room for two ponchos under the seat.  It is not uncommon for a passenger to just slip under the coattails of the driver and try to stay dry that way, but you’ll do better with your own poncho.

Its best to wear some sort of rubber sandals (not flip-flops) in the rain.  Wearing regular leather shoes will just ruin them and keep your feet wet longer.  Boots are too much of a hassle.  Don’t worry if your feet get wet – they get wet whenever you take a shower, so let ‘em get wet when you ride in the rain.

Of course, you could wear a rain suit.  The comment often heard from those who have tried it is that they get almost as wet from the sweat as they would from the rain.  We have suits, though – just in case.

But, as you can imagine, there are dangers to riding in the rain.  Some are obvious – you will have less traction, and you want to be careful of hydroplaning – though that is hard to do at slow môto speeds around town.  Your chief danger comes from having your rear view mirrors being blocked by the poncho (see picture) and the crazy kids who don’t have a poncho.  They seem to think that if they just go faster, they will not get wet.  They will zoom by you, weaving in and out of traffic, and usually scare the hell out of you.  Generally speaking, slow down, and use side streets as much as possible when its raining.

Even more fun happens when you ride in the rain - - and at night.

Cheap thrills.

Captain Hornblower

This is the second in a series of postings about Two-Wheeling in Việt Nam.  To see all the stories, click on the category “Two Wheeling in Việt Nam” on the left side of the screen.

You’re a polite person, eh?  I will assume the Gentle Reader is a nice person who never says anything angry towards another driver – and never blows his/her horn.  For most American males, the last time they honked their automobile horn in a friendly way was when they sat outside their date’s house and honked the horn for her to come out.

Americans do not honk their horn unless they are angry.

You’d better get over that to survive riding a môto in Việt Nam.  One of the biggest problems most North Americans have in learning to negotiate Vietnamese traffic is that they don’t use the horn enough. 

The horn has a different purpose in Việt Nam.  Think of the horn as a way for telling people where you are.  As you approach an intersection, sound your horn so other can “hear” where you are.  Nobody will mind. In fact, they will appreciate it.

As you approach that line of five girls riding abreast and talking to each other, you sound your horn to tell them you are coming around the left side.  (Okay – maybe the right side, but that’s another story.)  They will not move over because you sounded your horn – but now they’ll know you are there and will not pull in front of you.  They are trusting that you will not hit them.

The horn also establishes who has the right of way.  The big blast you hear behind tells you there is a truck coming.  Being bigger than you, he has the right of way.  Bear to the right.  Hear the horn louder than yours behind you?  That’s a taxi – and he is bigger than you, so bear to the right.  The horn that sounds like you is just another môto, and he is merely telling you he is passing – he’s not telling you to get the hell out of the way.

If I have a fault, it is that I don’t blow the horn enough.  When going to dinner, the Mystery Guest Blogger packs double with me, and constantly says “Beep beep” in my ear to remind me to honk more.  It’s her job!  Following a Vietnamese friend the other day, I noticed he used his horn a lot more.  He’s no kid – he is 60 years old, is a good rider - - and he uses his horn.

Don’t be afraid to blow your own horn.

Two-Wheeling in Việt Nam

Maybe you are a dedicated motorcyclist in North America, Europe, Australia, or other industrialized country  – or maybe you are newly arrived in Việt Nam and you’d like to make things a little easier on yourself and ride one of the ubiquitous motorbikes seen all over the country.  They are easy to rent, and cheap to buy.

The Vietnamese call them a môto, and they are quite different from a motorcycle.  Yes – they look pretty much the same.  They have two wheels, a small engine, and a seat designed to carry two people (albeit small Asian people.)  There is a throttle on the handlebars operated by the right hand, and a lever for the front brake.  There is a foot pedal for the rear brake, and a foot lever for shifting the gears.  It has a headlight, brake light, and turn signals.  Sounds like a motorcycle – but it ain’t.

A môto is intended to be an inexpensive people mover around an urban area.  Motorcycles are intended to be ridden at American highways speeds.  (I’m not talking about dirt bikes here – that’s another story.)  The engine in a môto cannot be bigger than 125 cc, and can only be one cylinder.  Bigger than that, and they are taxed at a much higher rate.   I cannot think of a street bike in America with an engine smaller than 250 cc, and they are usually twin cylinders.  The môto is geared for lugging heavy loads around at slow speeds.  I seldom use first gear – even with the Mystery Guest Blogger on the back – simply because I don’t need it.  First gear is suitable for pulling tree stumps.   In normal driving around Huê, I seldom go faster than 30 kilometers per hour.  (About 18 miles per hour.)  Pretty slow, eh?

Môtos are also easy to ride.  They have no hand clutch, but rather an automatic  centrifugal clutch that engages the gears as you add power.  Need to shift gears?  Just back off on the throttle, then snick the front of the gear lever down.  (Motorcycle riders can be confused by this at first – you want to use your toe to lift the gear lever, but a môto is designed to just rotate through the gears by pressing down all the time.  You can downshift if you want, but you do it by stepping on the back part of the gear shifter.  If you are not a motorcyclist, and have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it.)  Pay a few thousand dông more, and you can buy a môto that looks like a scooter and has an automatic transmission.

A motorcycle is designed to carry a person at highway speeds with neck-snapping acceleration.  Maybe – just maybe – a môto will go 60 kilometers per hour (about 38 miles per hour.)  In America, you will get run over at that speed.

A môto is intended to be primary transportation.  Few people in the west own motorcycles as their only transportation – a motorcycle is a luxury for having fun.

Probably the biggest deterrent for most foreigners to riding a môto in Việt Nam is the daunting traffic patterns – or, in reality, the lack of traffic patterns.  When you arrive in the country, and are riding through the streets of Sài Gòn or Hà Nội  in your air conditioned bus, the traffic looks positively chaotic.

And, it is.

How to learn the traffic patterns?

Ride a bicycle for a few months.  You can’t learn the traffic patterns from a car window nor while walking – you need to be in the traffic on two wheels.  A bike is the safest way to learn.  The Mystery Guest Blogger wrote an excellent story about bicycling on May 30th.  Also take a look at the posting on Antidote to Burnout, a blog by a man making his first sojourn back to Việt Nam since 1972.  It’s true – there is no road rage in Việt Nam, and its also true about people cutting you off, turning into traffic ahead of you, turning right from the left-hand lane, kids riding four abreast on their bikes, and riders doing other things that would irritate a saint in America.  But there is no road rage.

Read both postings – then come back for more on Two-Wheeling in Việt Nam.